February 26 Let them eat cake!

A great day out at the V&A to see Marie Antoinette Style - a fascinating exhibition showing Marie Antoinette as a complex fashion icon for over 250 years. The most fashionable and ill-fated queen in history, Marie Antoinette set the pace at the French court for over 20 years, from her marriage at 14 to the then dauphin, later Louis XVI of France, to her untimely death on the guillotine in 1793. Her name is associated with the decline in the moral authority of the French monarchy in the closing years of the ancien régime, though her courtly extravagance was but a minor cause of the financial disorders of the French state in that period. Her rejection of reform provoked unrest, and her policy of court resistance to the progress of the French Revolution finally led to the overthrow of the monarchy in August 1792. The exhibition included jewellery, shoes and dresses owned by Marie Antoinette herself, including stunning diamond necklaces and fabulous fabrics but also showed her influence in later fashions. Her style has been copied across the centuries and was shown to great effect, and much extravagance, in the 2006 film directed by Sophia Coppola and starring Kirsten Dunst. The exhibition is now sold out except to members but the V&A is always worth a visit.

Portrait of Marie Antoinette at the French court

The Sutherland Diamonds

Shoes belonging to Marie Antoinette